The New Agent
by kensi54382
Summary: Tony's new to NCIS, and his past has preceded him. Is it going to be a problem at this new job, or can Gibbs look past it and give Tony the chance to prove that he's as good as Gibbs had thought?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Gibbs thanked Pacci for the file and then sat at his desk. He opened the file and carefully started to read it, wanting to make sure he knew everything there was to know about Tony DiNozzo. After all, the man was going to be starting the following week, so Gibbs needed to be sure about who he would be working with. He had already seen what Tony could do, both under pressure and when he was relaxed. It had impressed him immensely, which was why Gibbs had made sure to get Tony into NCIS in the first place.

Gibbs smiled as he flipped through the many commendations Tony had received since starting his police career in Peoria- Tony had gotten many awards for outstanding work and for capturing criminals that had eluded many officers before him. He had even gotten a couple of inter-office awards. Those commendations only served to make Gibbs feel smug about getting his way. Then there were the several complaints in Tony's files. Gibbs had looked through them already, and they had made him feel confused. Many of the complaints coincided with his awards. A few of the complaints were from disgruntled criminals Tony had arrested, but that came with the job. The rest were from co-workers. One of the complaints mentioned that Tony had beaten up his partner in the squad room in Philadelphia. Another one was about Tony abusing his power as a detective to get the evidence he needed. Quite a few of the complaints seemed to come from his boss in Philly, which Gibbs thought was odd. Captains usually protected their team, but this one seemed to hate Tony, for absolutely no reason at all.

"Hey, Pacci," Gibbs called.

"Yes?" Pacci asked as he came back to Gibbs' desk.

"I need you to dig into a file for me."

"Sure. Whose file?"

"Captain Damien Walter. He's a Philadelphia PD captain. I want to know everything about him, particularly anything relating to Tony DiNozzo."

Pacci nodded. He took a seat at his desk and began typing, finding the information he needed almost immediately. He printed out a few pages and gave them to Gibbs. "There's more if you need it, but these are the parts relating to DiNozzo."

"Thank you, Chris." Gibbs scanned over the pages and shook his head. His suspicion had been confirmed. Tony had gotten into Philadelphia PD's arson unit after being recommended by the mayor. That had meant that the captain's own favourite, a street cop with zero experience, was passed over. Walter had had it in for Tony from the very beginning. Gibbs was even willing to bet that the complaints were fake, used to try and get rid of Tony. He was going to have to speak with Tony about that when he had a chance.

* * *

Tony walked into the bull pen on Monday morning, his eyes wandering around the large, open space separated by desks and some partitions. It was amazing to see how many people were in the room, working together to solve cases. It was completely different to what he had experienced in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Peoria. Completely different. With a smile, Tony walked over to a desk with his name on it. He already felt comfortable there, a little overwhelmed by it all, but comfortable nonetheless.

"I guess this is where I'm going to be sitting," Tony said quietly to himself. He put his coffee cup on the desk, dropped his backpack that Gibbs had given him the week before next to the desk and then walked around to the chair.

"DiNozzo, good to see you here finally. I'm Chris Pacci," said a guy that had just come over.

Tony looked up at the new face. "Nice to meet you. Do you work with Agent Gibbs too?"

"Not anymore. I have my own team now. But I did work with him for a few years. You must be really good, cause Gibbs never takes agents on if he doesn't believe in them."

"I've been a cop for the last six years."

"No wonder Gibbs wants you on his team. Six years on the streets definitely classifies as experience."

"What's Gibbs like as a boss?"

"That depends on who you ask. For me, Gibbs was a great boss, but that was the extent of our relationship. Trust me, you'll make a decision about him within the first week."

"Pacci, are you scaring my new agent?"

Pacci turned around, smiling. "Of course not, Gibbs. I was just introducing myself. It was nice to meet you DiNozzo," Pacci stated before walking away.

"DiNozzo, get up, we've got a case." Gibbs grabbed his own backpack and made his way to the elevator, Tony right behind him.

* * *

"What should I do, Agent Gibbs?" Tony asked when they arrived at the crime scene.

"Take witness statements," Gibbs answered before moving off to photograph the scene.

Tony was glad to be taking statements. He had been to dozens of gory scenes before, but this one definitely topped the list. The body had been blown up, and was literally in bits and pieces all over the ground. Blood was everywhere. Tony felt like he was going to be sick, so talking to the people that were almost a mile away was a definite plus.

"Okay, I'm Agent DiNozzo with NCIS," Tony began, feeling a sense of pride as he spoke. "Who can tell me what happened?"

Several people came forward, some crying, others looking as sick as he felt. A woman spoke up from the back of the crowd.

"He was walking past the store, talking on his phone. Then I heard this weird thump sound, so I looked up and the building on fire. The man was on fire too, and he was dropping to the ground when he just suddenly exploded," she said, tears streaming down her face.

"What's your name, ma'am?"

"Emily. Emily Smith."

Tony wrote the name down with the information she had provided. Then he turned to another person who had started to speak, writing down everything they said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Almost three hours later, Tony and Gibbs were back in the bull pen, sitting at their desks. Both were typing up reports on their computers, having solved the case in record time. The answer had been right in front of them from the beginning. The guy's phone had been one of the ones recently recalled for a manufacturing fault, but he hadn't returned it. The phone had caused a shortage in the power supply to the building the guy was in front of, which had caused the explosion. Insurance was going to pay to fix the building, the local council was coming out to clean up the mess in the street, and the guy's family would get death benefits. It had been a pretty easy case.

"DiNozzo, we need to talk about something," said Gibbs ten minutes later.

"About what?"

"You. I have a few questions about some things I read in your file that I want to get answers to."

"Sure. Ask away." Tony had no doubt in his mind what Gibbs was wanting to know, but he hadn't done anything wrong, so he had no problem talking about it.

"Follow me." Gibbs led Tony down a hallway to the conference room. "Have a seat."

Tony sat down in one of the comfortable chairs, facing his new boss.

"I noticed that you have a lot of awards and commendations in your file. I'm impressed."

"Thank you."

"But, I also saw quite a number of complaints."

"From my captain in Philly, right?"

"Yes."

"They aren't true. Well, not all of them. I did beat up my partner in the squad room, but that was self-defence."

"Why?"

"Because of a few things he did and said." Tony had hoped that his quick explanation on that one would be enough. It was the only real complaint in his file, but it was also the one complaint that he had trouble discussing.

"What did he say? What did he do, Tony?" Gibbs' tone was gentle, something that surprised Tony.

Hesitating for a moment or two, Tony finally spoke. "He murdered a suspect, shot him to death while we were looking for a drug dealer. There was no need for our weapons to even be out. The guy admitted his involvement in the drug ring we were investigating. I had already cuffed him and he was sitting in the back of our car. I had told my partner to leave the guy alone, that he was going too far and that I would report him, but he didn't listen, as usual. I was the 'new guy', the one that even the captain hated. My partner had been in the unit for nearly twenty years. He thought he had the right to do whatever he wanted to do."

"Did you report him?"

"I tried. Like I said, the captain hated me. He didn't listen, didn't believe me. There was nobody else in the room at the time, except my partner. He overheard me on the phone to my captain's boss and thought I was talking about him. The call was actually about a case that had just come in, but as usual, nobody wanted to believe me."

"What did your partner say when you told him about the call?"

"He called me a liar, said I was reporting him to the commissioner. I tried to get him to listen, but he was angry. When he gets angry, there's nothing to do except run in the other direction. But this time, he had been complaining loud enough for the captain to hear, and when I tried to run, my captain decided that I didn't deserve to get away from them. He blocked the exit with his body, and I couldn't get around him. We were on the eighth floor of the building, so the only way out was the single staircase."

"What happened?"

Tony shook his head. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Why not?"

"I just don't."

Gibbs could hear the pain and hurt in his new agent's voice, and he didn't want to push Tony to talk, but he needed to know what had happened. He needed to be able to understand Tony's mindset when he had attacked his partner. He wanted to be able to help in the future should a similar situation arise.

"Tony, tell me what happened. What did your partner do?" Gibbs gently coaxed.

Tears started to fall from Tony's eyes. "I had made the mistake of telling him about my family, and he used it against me. I got angry with him, and I tried to get around Walter so I wouldn't do anything stupid. The captain still blocked my way. I had my back to my partner- stupid, I know- so I didn't see him coming towards me. In a flash, my captain had moved out of the way, so I went to get out of the squad room, but my partner had grabbed my jacket and pulled me back into the middle of the room. It was a small room, so our desks were all close to each other. The middle was the only space where several people could stand without being on top of each other."

"Keep going. I'm listening."

Taking a deep breath, Tony spoke, his voice quieter. "He started to push me up against a desk. I pushed back, not hard, just enough to get him off me. He was twice my size, and at the time, I was still getting used to him. I managed to push him back a little bit, but it wasn't enough to move out of the way. He came back towards me, his hand balled into a fist. Before I could even try to do anything, he had punched me in the face. I could feel blood coming out of my nose, but I pushed him back again, this time managing to make enough room to get away. I was trying to get to the stairs, to get out of the way, but he was fast. And with the captain egging him on, I had no chance."

"Is that when you hit him?"

"He punched me again, and I felt my nose break that time. By then, blood was dripping onto my t-shirt, and my face was so sore, I couldn't tell where the pain was coming from. I started to hit him, just to get rid of him. I got in a few punches before he hit me again. Then, the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, next to the top of the staircase. I could see people from the seventh floor looking up, shock clear on their faces. I had a lot of friends down there, people that actually liked having me around."

"Did anyone come and help?"

"One woman, Zoe, she was on her way up to us when I noticed her. She was maybe two flights away. I called out to her for help and she dropped the file she was carrying to almost fly up the stairs. But it wasn't fast enough. I had no energy left to fight my partner off, so I just tried to get away from the stairs. He stopped me before I had rolled out of the way, pushed me with his foot until I was at the stairs again. Next thing I knew, I was rolling down the staircase. If Zoe hadn't been on the landing, I would have kept rolling down the next flight. She stopped me with her foot and sat with me until an ambulance arrived. Several people from the seventh floor squad room were with me too, but I was so dizzy and I felt like I was going to be sick, that I didn't recognise any of them."

"Did you go to the hospital?"

"Yes. I must have blacked out at some point though. I remember two medics sitting next to me after Zoe had helped me into a seated position against the wall. I remember one of them trying to touch my face. I even remember them helping me down to the ambulance. I don't remember getting into the ambulance, or arriving at the hospital. The next thing I remember was being in a hospital bed with a nurse wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I couldn't really see much through my puffy eyes by that point, so I just let her do her job."

"How long were you in the hospital?"

"A day. The doctor wanted to keep me under observation, and I didn't argue. I wasn't interested in going to work or anything anyway."

"Did you make a report?"

"With the police commissioner. He and two detectives from Internal Affairs came to the hospital. Apparently, the commissioner had heard everything. I must have thought I hung up the phone after speaking to him, and not actually done it. He was on my side, and had given a statement to IA about what he had heard. The two detectives had come with the commissioner to get my statement."

"Did you go back to work after that?"

"No. I told the commissioner I refused to go back there as long as my partner worked there. He helped me put in papers for a transfer. That's how I ended up in Baltimore."

"Was your boss in Baltimore concerned about the complaint in your file?"

"Yes. But he spoke to the commissioner who explained what had happened. I was transferred maybe a week after it had happened, so I still had bandages on my nose, and my face was still bruised. It was obvious that I was the one that had gotten the worst of the fight. He never brought it up with me, except to tell me that the commissioner had explained everything and that he was giving me a clean slate. He wouldn't tell anyone about the fight so that I could try and start things off on the right foot."

"Were you partnered with Danny right from the start?"

"Yes. We got along so well until a few months ago. I can't believe he turned out to be a dirty cop. But at least I could work with him. He knew about my family, but he never once brought it up, and he never told it to anyone."

Gibbs smiled. "You know, I won't tell anyone either."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Tony was grateful that Gibbs had listened to him without judgement. He was glad that the man had pushed him too. It felt good to talk about it, it felt good to get it off his chest.

"I don't think you want to know about my family," said Tony.

"I do. If I know what triggers anger or hurt, I can make sure that it is avoided."

With a grateful smile, Tony said, "okay. My mother died when I was eight. She was my best friend for those eight years. We did everything together- she would take me out to movies, to the park, to carnivals, everything. When she died, we were in the hospital, watching a movie together."

"She sounds like a sweet person."

"She was. She was the best parent anyone could wish for. My father on other hand, he wasn't going to be winning any father of the year awards. He is selfish and self-centred. He cares about himself and money, that's it. As soon as my mother died, he started to take me everywhere with him, but he would always leave me in hotel rooms while he did his work. One time, I was left alone for two days in a hotel room while he literally disappeared. Then, once I started high school, he sent me to boarding schools. It didn't matter where, as long as I wasn't anywhere near him. Straight after boarding school, he sent me to Rhode Island Military Academy. I was there for about three years, I think, but I didn't want to leave after that. It was the first time I had felt at home since my mother died."

"What did you do after you left military school?"

"I went to Ohio State University on a Phys Ed scholarship. I graduated two years later. In that time, I played basketball and football, but we lost both championships."

"Do you talk to your father?"

"No. I can't bring myself to do so. He is the only family I have left, I think, but I don't care."

Gibbs understood that feeling. "I guess both parents are buttons that, if pushed, will anger you."

"Yes."

"Okay. Now that I know, we can avoid anyone pushing those buttons. I may be your boss, Tony, but I'm also a friend. If you need anything at all, let me know. I'm happy to help."

"Thank you, Agent Gibbs. Your faith in me means a lot." Tony smiled, feeling more comfortable than he had ever felt in a job before.

* * *

Tony followed his new boss back to the bull pen. Gibbs had promised to watch out for him, which helped a lot with getting through his first day at NCIS. Everyone seemed friendly, but Tony had been burnt before, and his trust was hard to get.

"DiNozzo?" Pacci asked. "There's a man out here wanting to speak to you. Says he was your old boss."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"Nope. But he has a box with him, so I'm guessing that he has something to give you."

"Thank you, Agent Pacci." Tony stepped forward and moved to where his old captain was standing. "Sir?"

"I just wanted to deliver your belongings in person so I could say goodbye."

"You already said goodbye. You even got a cake."

"I know."

"Why are you here? I'm not coming back to Baltimore."

"Why? You are my best detective. Please, come back."

"No."

"Please?"

"He said no," said Gibbs, stepping up beside Tony. "Don't force him to do something he doesn't want to do."

"I need him, Agent Gibbs."

"Agent DiNozzo has made his decision, and you need to respect that. He does not want to return to Baltimore, so leave him alone. And, if you try to change his mind again, don't think I won't find out and deal with you. Now, leave this building before I call security." Gibbs took the box of Tony's belongings and watched until the police captain had left. He turned to Tony. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks, boss." Tony took the box and went to his desk, feeling very lucky to have met Gibbs when he did.


End file.
